BBQ in the country side

Anil had been invited to a BBQ in the Maltese country side and he asked me taggle along. On the menu was rabbit stew and other stuff to eat. We met up with Anil's friend and we drove off to the hills and soon enough we arrived to a country house that was rather rugged. The surroundings were quite rocky too, not difficult to understand how the stonewalls on the Island have come about when clearing land for farming. Food was good although the stew was medium but, overall I did not have anything to complain about a free day in the nature.

Anchor swivel project

Today we had a bit of a project to replace the swivel on the port side anchor. As we were alongside but our bow was overlapping the end of the jetty by some 25m we could not simply lower it down and hoist it onto the pier. 

New swivel

Maltese festa

Rockets in skyline

Jetski to Gozo

As we had new jetski's onboard we needed to run them in a bit to reach the 10h service mark and me and George decided to take a sight seeing trip to Gozo while getting two flies in one blow. We set off and the seas were rather calm and we could keep up good speed. While getting to the NE corner of Malta Island the seas coming in through the sound between Malta and Gozo became quite high. The view of Comino Island and Gozo were breathtakingly beautiful with their rugged cliffs. We stopped on the way to Baia beach lounge as some crew was there spending a Saturday in sunshine.

Mgarr ix-Xim

Diving HMS Maori

HMS Maori is probably Malta’s most famous wreck, although she is far from the best dive in Malta, a visit to this ship is a significant brush with the island’s history.

HMS Maori

Job offer on m/y Serene

I had been a few days ago offered a job on m/y Serene (134m) through Russel Stockil from YCO and had been having some careful consultation and deliberation. The position offered was as Chief Officer cum Relief Captain with the Captain having no rotation.

m/y Serene at Capri

BBQ in Sliema

Went in teh eevning to Sliema to meet Diaz and Jasmond and they had whipped together a Vietnamese and Maltese BBQ with Rose' to flush down the good food.

Sightseeing Malta

As it was Saturday I go out to meet my friend Diaz in Valletta at the Triton fountain, the meeting is happy and we had lunch in the Old city while catching up. I ate a Maltese dish that was rabbit stew. Although the restaurant was impressive with 15m high rooms I think the food left much wanting.

One of the many staircases in Malta

Arrival Valletta

We arrived in front of Valletta around noon and we took onboard a compass adjuster before going alongside. After the swing we made ready to go alongside and started our approach.

Valletta

Castellammare di Stabia - Valletta

On the 7th early morning we hoisted anchor and set course for Valletta, Malta for a little downtime. More maintenance and jobs to be done as usual. My old Bosun once said: "the work is never completed on a ship" and he was right to his words, once you get to one end you can start anew from the other.

Last view of Capri 

Cruising Italian riviera

On the 30th we depart Castellammare di Stabia for Naples. It don't take us many hours before reaching there and we anchor off "Molo Luise" (Mergellina Sannazzaro), the local yachting mafia's marina. They claim we could come alongside but all publications we have suggests a maximum length of 70m and I'm also agreeing seeing the small rathole and how packed it is with yachts. 

"Molo Luise" (Google satellite)